Generally, as an orbital septum surrounding the fat of the lower eyelid becomes weak with age, the fat in the orbital septum swells and sags under the eye. Consequently, shadow may be formed along the skeleton adjacent to the nose and the pigmentation of skin may be caused, thus leading to dark circles that make a region under the eye look dark. Further, as the skin sags and acquires wrinkles, a person's face may look tired. The cause why fat is accumulated under the eye is known as a kind of aging process. The accumulation of the fat may be sometimes accompanied by diseases such as hyperthyroidism, renal failure, rhinitis and asthma.
Once a person gets the eye bag, it is difficult to remove the eye bag through massage or meridian massage, and the eye bag is not naturally restored to its original shape. Therefore, it is necessary to surgically remove the eye bag in plastic surgery. A surgical procedure for removing the eye bag while reducing wrinkles under the eye is referred to as lower eyelid surgery. This procedure is problematic in that a region under the eyebrow is incised, so that a patient may often get a bruise on his or her surgical site, and under-eye fat may disappear, and thereby the face may look flat and complications such as ectropion and involution may occur.
Recently, an eye-bag relocating operation is carried out instead of completely removing the eye bag. This operation removes some unnecessary fat and relocates some fat in a sunken lacrimal groove under the eye according to the distribution of the eye bag, thus avoiding the dark circle and minimizing a depression under the eye.
As the related art concerning the eye-bag relocating operation, there have been proposed a skin incision procedure where the skin under the eye is incised and a conjunctiva incision procedure where the conjunctiva inside the eye is incised. The conjunctiva incision procedure is preferred because a scar is not visible from the outside, as long as the skin does not sag excessively.
Such a conjunctiva incision procedure may adopt an external fixing method and an internal fixing method, as a method for relocating the swelling eye bag in the lacrimal groove and fixing the relocated eye bag.
The external fixing method is a method where the eye bag is tied with thread, the thread is pulled out through a needle and then is taped and fixed, and this state is kept for about one week, thus inducing the natural adhesion of shifted fat. Meanwhile, the internal fixing method is a method where the eye bag is internally fixed under an excoriated lacrimal groove with thread.
The external fixing method is advantageous in that it is easy to perform the procedure through the conjunctiva, and it is possible to sufficiently move the eye bag to a desired position in an excoriated space. However, the external fixing method is problematic in that taping is required, a patient should visit a hospital within one week after the surgical procedure so as to remove the thread, and a skin trouble or an inflammation may be caused by the thread passing through the skin and the taping.
The internal fixing method is advantageous in that this method is more robust than the external fixing method, there is little recurrence, and it is unnecessary for a patient to visit a hospital so as to remove the taping and the thread. However, the internal fixing method is problematic in that a visual field is limited when the conjunctiva is incised, so that it is complicated to perform the internal fixing method, an incision line should be formed long to secure a clear view, so that the conjunctiva may be badly scarred and adhered, and the eye bag may not sufficiently moved down to the lacrimal groove due to a small surgical space, and consequently a satisfactory effect of treatment may not be obtained.
Further, as the related art, Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 10-2015-0107292 discloses a needle for plastic surgery with suture thread.